November 30, 2007. Taroko Gorge and Taipei

November 30, 2007 Taroko Gorge and Taipei

Morning sees us by the river - this was taken from the "suspension bridge" leading to the temple. On the bridge we met two Americans who said they had seen Macaques not far from the hotel. He gave us what turned out to be accurate directions, including climbing a steep rocky face, studded with chains, to a bamboo grove. Well, now we know what we're going to do after breakfast!

It's after breakfast, and up the path to look for apes. Finally, I got one of these big boys I've been talking about to pose - there were actually several of them, and I took enough pictures to catch one of them looking great. These butterflies are the size of a small bird. They look even more like a bird while flying because only the front wings flap - the rear ones act as stabilizers.

Following instructions, we climbed a steep rocky staircase with chains, and came to a bamboo grove. Now we're looking around for macaques. Didn't find any. Oh well - the rest of the walk was great anyway.

We've been seeing these all over the place - large bee or hornet's nests made apparently of mud, generally with live leaf stems growing through them. This one is about 8 inches in diameter. They appear to be inactive, but I could not get Ann to poke one with a stick while I recorded events with the camera.

Some interesting plants, about a half inch in diameter. I'm calling them liverworts, type of plant that has no need for fads like vascular systems and flowers. These are clustered on the wet vertical rock faces next to the path.

Whoa - these are big, nasty looking wasps, about 2-1/2 inches long! The one on the left was busy laying eggs in the exposed wood of a tree, when the second, smaller wasp happened by. They seemed to commune a bit with their feelers (as shown here) then the small one took off. No aggressive behavior, so even the wasps are kinder and gentler in Taiwan. Interestingly, a several of butterflies clustered close to the wasp as it was laying.

When I look at the image above, I see a burnt out camp fire with a bit of beer foam running down one side. This image should really be about four feet wide. In reality, this is a large falls at the end of the day's second walk, called "Nine Turns Gorge". It follows a section the path of the old highway, now replaced by an adjacent tunnel. This view was the high point of the trip, not only for the view, but because we did see a macaque, after all, today, pointed out to us by a fellow tourist. It was feeding quietly in a tree on the opposite side of the gorge.

Next stop, Taipei. We head into town on the sleek new "leaning train", which is similar inside to the HST we took from Tainan to Taipei a few days ago.

After checking in at our hotel, we go for a short walk to the fashionable Ximen (West Gate) district, the preferred night time habitat of young and cool people, such as ourselves. We are in search of some steamed dumplings to take back to the room ...

and we find them here - tasty soup-filled dumplings from a nice little shop. The proprietor simply beams with integrity. Our dumplings are in the slightly darker container in the bottom right corner. This is at #30 Hankou Street Sec. 2. Like most of such places, they do mostly take-out, and sell in units of one steamer-tray, not individual dumplings. No language is needed: just smile, point, look at the price on the calculator, pay, eat and smile some more.

That's it for today. Signing off, dateline Taipei!